Superstitions

Sydney Lucas and Elizabeth Girardeau have been the best of friends for as long as either of them can remember, which isn’t all that long, given that they are both seven years old. Last week, they were in the front row at Louis Armstrong Stadium, next to their mothers, watching the U.S. Open. They both love tennis, but mostly they love John Isner, the American tennis player who, two months ago at Wimbledon, played the longest match in the history of the game.

Isner was in Armstrong for his opening round match, his first in a Grand Slam since his eleven-hour tennis root canal, an experience he did not wish to repeat. Lucas and Girardeau wanted to help, and to that end, they developed a cheer—“Let’s go John! Clap…Clap…Clap Clap Clap!”—to shout during each changeover.

“We just tried to be as loud as we can,” said Girardeau, who was wearing pink pants with rainbow pockets. “For John.”

“We’re really, really, really, really big fans of him,” said Lucas.

Why?

“Well,” Girardeau said, pausing as if she had never thought about it. “I just decided he was really good.”

Lucas: “He’s also tall and handsome. I like that.”

Isner is, in fact, quite tall—fully twice the height of his admirers—and really good. Twenty-five years old and among the top twenty players in the world, he is a vicious server who superstitiously bounces the ball between his legs before each serve, like a showboating point guard.

Early in the match, none of the other spectators joined in the chant, but the girls were not shy. They’re performers after all. Lucas has an agent at J.M.M., which represents child actors, and Girardeau says she has been acting since she was three—or, for half her lifetime. The girls are also superstitious, which is why they cheer between every changeover. Recently, Lucas auditioned for the role of “the Dragonfly” on the animated show “Team Umizoomi.” She had never landed a voice-over before, but felt confident: Walking down the sidewalk after the audition, a bird relieved itself on her head, which, she had heard, was good luck.

“First, it landed like this,”—she splayed her fingers on top of her head—“Then it fell down like this”—her hands dripped down the side of her face—“And I just thought it was rain, but then my Mom said, no, a bird just pooped on your head.” Lucas got the gig.

Isner jumped ahead, but was not his best (he had recently injured his foot). After missing an easy overhead at the net, he pressed his middle and index fingers against his temple then slammed the hammer—his thumb—down hard.

“Quick,” Lucas shouted. “I need to drink more water!”

Lucas explained that, like being splattered with bird feces, drinking water is good luck: “In Fairy World and Magic World, you have to drink a lot of water to win.” Ditto for the real world: the courts in Queens reached a hundred and nine degrees, though they’ve cooled down and given way to post-Hurricane Earl winds this week.

Lucas chugged the remainder of her plastic Evian bottle. Girardeau did the same with a refilled Gatorade. Isner was now up 5-4 in the third set, and preparing to serve for the match. The girls started the chant, and now, in this final changeover, the rest of the stadium clapped along. The girls smiled with delight. Four points later, Isner was into the second round.

Lucas’ family has these seats in Armstrong for every match, but this was the first time a tournament official had walked over and, appreciating their zeal, given the girls two tennis balls from the match. Lucas and Girardeau shouted Isner’s name, hoping he would autograph the balls, but he packed his bags and walked off the court. They assumed he hadn’t noticed.

“Yeah, I actually did hear them,” Isner said after the match. “They were pretty cute.”

Isner lost two rounds later, to Mikhail Youzhny. The match was in Ashe, not Armstrong: Lucas and Girardeau were not there.